Her Own Rules (10 page)

“Yes, she is…inside as well as out. She’s a truly good person, Meredith, the best I’ve ever known. So brave, so patient…”

There was a small silence, and then Meredith 98 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

said, “Thank you for giving me the job. I won’t let you down. And I’ll work very hard.”

“I’m sure you will.”

Meredith walked over to her bike, then suddenly, swinging around, she stood looking across at the lake.

She could see it through the trees, glistening in the late afternoon sunlight. “Do you get much wildlife on the lake?” she asked at last in a strangely wistful voice.

“All year round, I’m happy to say. There’re probably flocks of birds down there now. Ducks, Canada geese especially. Shall we walk over and have a look?”

Meredith nodded, reached for her bicycle and wheeled it along between them.

At one moment Jack said, “Do you like biking?”

“Sometimes. Why?”

“I have a bike, and I often ride it around the property. I can’t claim to have covered the whole hundred and fifty acres, but I’ve done my best to see as much as I can. And there’s a lot to see, most of it interesting.”

“It’s a big place, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but not as big as some of the spreads in the outback, I bet.”

She laughed. “The only part of Australia I know is Sydney.”

He shrugged. “But it
is
a big country.”

“Yes, it is. And is this all your land, Mr. Silver?”

“It is. My great-great-great-grandfather, Adam Silver, and his wife Angharad, bought it in 1832, as I told you. They built the inn, the house next to it, which Her Own Rules / 99

is the one where Amelia and I now live, and various other small buildings on the property. And, of course, the family’s been running the inn since those days.”

“An unbroken chain,” she said, the awe creeping into her voice again.

Jack simply nodded.

The two of them walked on, taking the wide path.

This cut down through the green lawns and flower gardens, which were just starting to bloom; it stopped at the edge of the lake.

“I know it’s called Silver Lake because of your name, but the lake
is
silver in color. And it’s so calm.”

She leaned against the handlebars of the bike and shaded her eyes with one hand. “I’ve always liked being near water, and for as long as I can remember. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel—” She paused, unable to finish her sentence, at a loss for the right word to describe her emotions.

“
What
does it make you feel, Meredith?”

“I’m not sure…I can never really put my finger on the feeling.”

“Happy? Content? Secure? It’s surely a
good
feeling you experience, or you wouldn’t like being near the water at all.”

“That’s true. I suppose it makes me feel…well, all of those things you’ve just mentioned. But sometimes I feel sad, as if I’ve lost something…something precious.

The water reminds me of it.”

He made no response, merely looked at her closely before focusing on the lake. Suddenly he pointed and cried excitedly, “Oh look! Over there!

100 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

That’s the blue heron that comes every spring. It flies away after a few days and rarely comes back to the lake until the next year. But it’s marvelous and I’m certain it’s the same bird.”

“How strange. I can’t imagine why it does that. If I were a bird, I would never want to leave Silver Lake.

I would want to live here forever and ever, it’s so beautiful.”

Jack Silver stared at her, taken by her words so softly spoken.

Meredith met his eyes. She was quite startled by their intensity. They did not leave her face and there was an expression in them she could not fathom. And she discovered that she could not look away…

It was Jack who broke the spell between them. He said suddenly, gruffly, “I’m glad you’re coming to work at Silver Lake Inn, Meredith. I have a feeling things will go well. Amelia likes you. I like you. I sincerely hope you like us.”

“I do, Mr. Silver, and
I’m
glad I’m coming here too.”

They walked back to the inn in silence, both lost for a few moments in their own thoughts.

“See you on Monday, Mr. Silver,” Meredith said, climbing onto her bike and riding away.

“Call me Jack,” he shouted after her.

“All right, I will,” she answered, half turning, waving before disappearing down the long drive.

He stood watching her until she was out of sight, and he was amazed at himself when he suddenly realized he had not wanted her to leave. There was something most appealing about this girl; she Her Own Rules / 101

was fresh and sweet and very beautiful, although he knew
she
did not realize just how beautiful she truly was. Nor did she understand the impact she made with her long legs, sun-streaked brown hair, and smoky-green eyes. He discovered he missed her already and he had known her for only a couple of hours, and he was further amazed at himself.

The insistent ringing of the telephone awakened Meredith with a sudden start. As she jumped up and went to answer it, she realized she had fallen asleep on the sofa earlier.

“Hello?”

“Good morning, Mrs. Stratton. This is your wake-up call. It’s five o’clock,” the hotel operator informed her.

“Thank you,” she answered, putting the phone back in the cradle and turning on a lamp. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it
was
five; it surprised her that she had spent the entire night on the sofa without waking up once. She must have been extremely tired.

On the other hand, the big, overstuffed sofa was as comfortable as the bed.

Patsy will soon be here, she thought, hurrying into the bedroom, slipping out of her dressing gown, then heading for the shower. She was filled with relief that she had packed the night before.

An hour later she was standing in the lobby of Claridge’s waiting for her partner, who was going to drive them to the north of England.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
t was a dull morning, gray and overcast, when Patsy and Meredith drove away from Claridge’s hotel.

Leaden skies threatened rain, and by the time Patsy was pulling onto the motorway, pointing the Aston-Martin in the direction of the north, it was already pouring.

Meredith leaned back against the car seat, only half listening to the radio, her mind preoccupied with business. At one moment she closed her eyes, and then, almost against her own volition, she began to doze, lulled by the warmth in the car and the music on the radio.

“Go to sleep if you feel like it,” Patsy said, glancing at her quickly before focusing on the road ahead again.

“I don’t mind, and we don’t have to talk if you’re tired.”

“I’m fine,” Meredith replied, opening her eyes Her Own Rules / 103

and sitting up straighter. “Even though I spent the night on the sofa I did in fact have a good rest.”

“Why did you sleep on the sofa?”

“I was still wide awake at one in the morning, too much on my mind, I guess. So I decided to get up, then I must have dozed off a bit later on.”

“I hope you weren’t up in the middle of the night fretting about Reed Jamison.” Patsy frowned, throwing her a concerned look.

“No, of course not.”

“Good, because he’s certainly not worth worrying about.”

“I agree, and I’m relieved I told him how I felt, Patsy.” Meredith laughed dryly. “It’s probably the only time I’ve had his full attention.”

“What do you mean?”

“I always thought Reed wasn’t really listening to anything I had to say. It seemed to me that he was very busy formulating his reply, preoccupied with what he was going to say rather than with the meaning of my words.”

“A lot of people suffer from that particular ailment,”

Patsy muttered. “It’s a kind of self-involvement, I suppose. Then again, nobody seems to
really
listen anymore. Except you. You’re the best listener I’ve ever known.”

“I learned that from Amelia. She taught me how important it is to listen, and she was always saying that you didn’t learn anything if you were the one doing all the talking. How right she was, but she was generally right about most things, and she 104 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

taught me such a lot.” There was a small pause, and then Meredith added, “She was quite the most remarkable person I’ve ever known.”

“I’m sorry I never knew her,” Patsy said. “And it’s funny you should mention her this morning, because I was thinking about her only last night, thinking what an influence she’s been on both our lives, although indirectly on mine, of course. Just think, if John Raphaelson hadn’t been her lawyer and then yours, you would never have met his brother, who was one of my father’s best friends, and therefore we would never have met, would we?”

Meredith smiled. “That’s true, and
I
wish you’d known Amelia. She was so special.” Meredith let out a little sigh. “You know, if she’d lived, she’d be only sixty-two this year. Not that old at all.”

“And Jack? How old would he have been?”

“He was four years younger than Amelia, so he would have been fifty-eight…at the end of this month, actually.”

“How sad for you that they died so young.”

“Yes…Amelia struggled to keep going after Jack’s death, but the light had gone out for her. She just gave up in the end, and I’ve always thought she died of a broken heart, if that’s possible.”

“Oh
I
think it is, Meredith. I believe my mother did…she went so quickly after my father passed away.

I’ve always thought she just lost all interest in living once he was gone. In fact, I found out from my aunt, after Mummy had died, that she was al-Her Own Rules / 105

ways saying, ‘I want to go to Winston,’ and she stopped eating, well, she ate very little. It was as if she lost her appetite…for everything, including life. I do think she’d made up her mind to die.”

“Amelia was a bit like that too, although she did live for a year after Jack’s death. Not surprising really, when you think about it. People who have been together for a long time are so dependent on each other, and when one of them is suddenly alone, it’s traumatic.”

“They’re lonely, and loneliness is a pretty unbearable state to be in.”

“Amelia once said the same thing. Actually, she said loneliness was another kind of death. She loved me and she loved Cat, but Jack was the light of her life.

Without him she seemed to lose her purpose, her raison d’être. Did I ever tell you that they’d known each other since their childhood?”

“No, you never did. And did they grow up together?”

“Part of the time, yes. Her parents had a summer home in Cornwall Bridge, not far from Silver Lake, and they were friends of the Silvers. Jack and Amelia met when they were children. Amelia was fourteen and Jack ten. They became best friends. They were both only children, you see, only children of only children, so there were no brothers and sisters or cousins. ‘I’m going to marry you when I grow up,’ Jack was forever telling her, and she’d laugh and say she couldn’t possibly marry a younger man. But they did marry when they were

106 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

in their early twenties. And then Amelia had the riding accident…how different their lives would have been if she hadn’t been thrown by her horse. But that was her destiny…at least, that’s what she used to say to me.”

“What did she mean?”

“Exactly that, Patsy. She said that none of us could tamper with fate. Or avert it.
Ché serà serà
she would constantly murmur,
what will be will be
. That was her motto in a way, and her philosophy too. She said it was fate that brought me to Silver Lake that day in May of 1969. She said I was simply living out my destiny, just as she was doing, and Jack too. ‘I’m meant to be in this chair, Meri, I don’t know why, but I am,’

she would tell me over and over again.” Meredith paused, looked at Patsy through the corner of her eye.

“According to Amelia, fate brought me to them. And as I’ve told you many times before, they changed my life, just as I changed theirs, and in so many different ways. For the better…for all of us. They gave me love and warmth and understanding, and the only real home I’d ever known until then. And I gave them something they’d always wanted, always missed…”

“You were like a sister to them, the sister neither of them ever had.”

“Yes, I
was
a sibling, in a sense. But what I meant was that I gave them Cat. My baby was like their child as well as mine. And how much they loved her.”

“I know, and just think how happy they’d be if Her Own Rules / 107

they could see her today. She’s really grown up to be such a fine young woman. Do you think she
will
get engaged to Keith?”

“I do, and it’ll be soon. Catherine has very good instincts, and she wouldn’t have said anything to me the other night if she hadn’t felt Keith was on the verge of proposing.”

“I hope I get an invitation to the wedding.”

“Don’t be so silly, of course you will. Cat loves you, and she’s never forgotten how marvelous you were to her the year she lived with you in London. And neither have I, for that matter. Because of you, I was able to sleep every night. I didn’t have to worry about my daughter being alone in a foreign country.”

“I was happy to look out for her, be a big sister. Will you have the reception at Silver Lake?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure of that. Cat wouldn’t want it anywhere else, she loves that place the way I do. And it’s the perfect setting for a wedding. Blanche is all excited, planning it already in her mind. The other evening she was talking about marquees and the menu and no doubt she’s got everything planned by now, from the flowers to the parking arrangements. Anyway, you’re going to come, and you’ll stay with me at the house.”

“How lovely, thank you. Oh gosh, Meredith, being in love is wonderful, and I’m thrilled for Cat, thrilled that she’s found the right man. I wish I could.”

“When you’re looking, there’s never one around.”

108 / Barbara Taylor Bradford

Meredith leaned her head against the back of the seat, closed her eyes. “And a man isn’t always the answer, you know.”